


On Memory

by MK_Marlowe



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Snippet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Marlowe/pseuds/MK_Marlowe
Summary: Elven memory versus Mortal memory.





	1. Chapter 1

Legolas remembers everything that has passed between them with absolute clarity. It is the way of Elves.

“Another cheat,” Gimli complains, and at Legolas’ sputter, continues in his inexorable fashion. “I am a Mortal! If my memory dims, it is only how I am made. You mustn’t lord it over me.”

And oh, how it aggravates! 

Because Legolas must be reasonable, must allow that this is the way of Dwarves, and Men, and Hobbits. Their memory isn’t the clear river he could traverse, forward and back, a thousand times in an instant. No, his dear Dwarf’s memory is shifted and colored and changed by… by anything! By emotion, by distance, by time.

And every time Gimli scoffs and says, “I didn’t say that!” Legolas must draw a breath, hold it, and allow…

Allow that what was said, and what was meant, might well differ. And that he must trust to what Gimli remembers, even as his memory falters, days after the event.

“I may not remember the exact details of the matter,” Gimli allows, finally, in Fangorn, his gaze averted and hand still and steady on the bark of a tree older than even Legolas, “but I remember the truth of myself. Trust to that, if you would love me.”

And if there is anything in all of Middle Earth Legolas would do, willingly, hopefully, achingly, it is to love Gimli, Son of Gloin.


	2. Chapter 2

"Even this will be forgotten," Legolas marvels. The fields surrounding the White City are green, children dashing through the grasses and pretending to be the soldiers lost only scant years before: the War of the Ring as a game.

One small, dark maiden yells in defiance, raises a stick to a boy menacing her-- "Eowyn! Eowyn!" some other child cries. How could this be forgotten? But that is just the way of Mortals, as Gimli says. And Men forget sooner than most, as their years are shorter than most.

Now, Gimli leaves this rebuke unspoken, but his hands turn a bit of a masonry over and over, thumbing a crumbled corner. "Weathering already," he murmurs, as though Legolas mightn't hear him. "In a few more years, little more than a rock."

Memory. That, and fading. There is something linked, there. Legolas takes the piece of the City and tries to remember from where it might have fallen, but Gondor was already under siege when they arrived. He can see it only as battered, faltering.

"But that is just the way," he says, he whose past cannot be hidden, lost in pieces along the way.

"Ah, Legolas," Gimli sighs, and looks up to the bright sky.

"I fear I cannot see an advantage to it," Legolas says, trying for levity--and perhaps succeeding, for Gimli laughs. Surprised, pure, true as the ring of a bell, as it always is, as Legolas hears it whenever he casts his mind back.

Gimli takes the bit of stone from his hand and lets it tumble carelessly into the grass, before joining their hands together.

"Aye, but they will soonest forget the Shadow," he says, and offers up a smile. "Can you think of a greater reward for all our sacrifice than that?"


	3. Chapter 3

When word first comes to Ithilien, when Arwen’s letter reaches him and advises him to come, to say his goodbyes to Aragorn now, Legolas does not immediately head for Gondor. The cacophony of gulls in his ears, in his heart; Legolas travels to the Glittering Caves, every pulse of blood in his immortal veins a reminder of all he has to lose.

The guards at the great gate do not halt him at all. They are already pulling fleeting metal aside, giving him clear path to his most beloved, no questions, no pauses. Legolas leaps from his mount and trusts them to care for it, unable to take the time.

The time. Every beat of his heart, reminding him of how few remain for those he loves.

West, only the West--to go West, to promised peace, to surcease of grief. A grief he cannot bear, but cannot bear to lose. Cannot bear to forget.

Gimli is in his own room: a small, simple space, carved into unassuming stone, with little light from the crystal that has grown so luxuriously throughout the rest of Aglarond. He had told Legolas, once, that it was to keep him rising early and eager: to search out the beauty he knew existed in the world around him.

And he remembers, each word exactly, each stretch of muscle as Gimli smiled, sly and sweet--

“Legolas!” is all Gimli is able to say before Legolas is upon him, pressing a kiss to his slack, surprised mouth, forcing him back upon the low bed. 

“Come with me,” he orders, commands--he begs, Firstborn and Lord of his people, he begs, because for Gimli to deny him would break him. Would end whatever hope he has of surviving a journey West.

And Gimli, damn his beautiful, undimmed, but aging smile, laughs! “But of course I will--”

“West,” Legolas hastens to add, to correct. “Come with me to Valinor.”

The moment stretches. Gimli’s eyes are wide and dark--dark as the night must be, for stars to appear, faint and faintly singing. “Love, I can’t do that.”

“Not now, not yet,” Legolas says, and it is all so fast, so ungainly--time rushing past him, a river seeking to drown him, a collapse of earth to bury him. “But soon. You must. I cannot--I cannot leave you, you must come with me--”

And Gimli places his hand, gentle, on Legolas’ cheek, eyes darker and darker with love and sorrow. “Love, that won’t save me. When my time is come, I must go--or lose myself. You’ve see the wraiths of Men--”

“I won’t have you forget me!” Legolas cries out, leaning over his only love, his one and only, his heart. Hands to either side of his dear face, with more lines now, more hairs succumbed to white--

Gimli surges up, strength undimmed, to capture Legolas in a kiss, strong and sure as all the years they have spent together. Fear still rages within him, but Legolas kisses back, gives that fear over, speaks it as clearly as his body will allow. 

For long moments, moments he does not measure, they kiss. But it has never been Gimli’s way to be silent in the face of shadow, any shadow. And he speaks. “Legolas, listen.”

“You are not fair!” Legolas bursts out, his uneasy peace shattering. He jumps up, pacing the tiny room--so small! so dark! He wrings his hands, unable to be still.

“No,” Gimli sighs, sitting up and pushing his hand through his silvered hair. “I am not fair, least for this: you will always remember the words I say now, even when they are lost to me. When even I am lost to me.”

“I don’t want to hear this!” 

But his love has always been inexorable. “The stone cannot remember which drop of water, which current of the river smoothed it, changed it... but nevertheless, it is become new. It cannot be anything other than what it is now, and I am the same, Legolas. Love cannot leave me anything but changed, remade by and for you, always.”

Legolas will not look at him, will not show any more of the weakness that is breaking him now. “Come with me,” he whispers, too soft to be heard. 

“Every iteration of Gimli Gloinsson, Silver-tongue, Lord of the Glittering Caves and love of the most aggravating elf to ever live--”

He must laugh through his tears, and Gimli has never spoken more true than admitting his own ability to be fair. 

“I can trust all of myself to you, to know you will keep me, in all my contradictions, treasured in your heart, always. You know every turn, every rise and fall of my soul--you have caused so many of these!”

Hands on his waist, Gimli turning him now, eyes still dark, still shining with all the light of all the stars. Legolas’ memory is perfect, and he knows there were days before he knew Gimli, Son of Gloin. There were days before he loved him. 

He cannot trust his memory of those days, and feels, for a brilliant, bright-white and unsettling moment, Mortal.

“I do not forget my makers,” Gimli tells him, solemn as he so rarely is. “I cannot. It is how I am made, and you, love, are inextricably a part of me. Should I some day forget your face, your name--”

He strokes his hand along Legolas’ face as if to say such a thing is impossible, and Legolas believes it, the breaking of his heart the exact moment it comes together within him, remade, reforged, renewed.

“I will recognize you as the one who has created the least spaces within me, and made me whole,” Gimli promises him; aye, promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm... pretty sure this is done now?


End file.
